There's no accounting for how people interpret it. One of those who took me for British was a railway station attendant at Waterloo Station I made enquiries of when I was visiting Britain in 2014. I don't really know how many would do that, though.
But I have a very strong tendency to use long A's in words like "France", "castle", "plant", "example", and many others, and additionally, I just speak very precisely and properly, and I think these things sound very British to many in Australia at least, where I fancy some of these older-style habits I have retained seem to me to be becoming less common. My brothers lost their long A's decades ago, if they ever had them - but my mother has kept them, as well as very proper speech in general.
Oddly enough, I don't recall whether my father used long A's or not - he died in 1997, and details of memory about such things are fading a bit - but he generally spoke properly, too, in a rather old-fashioned kind of way that you'd expect to have long A's - so quite possibly he did.
Regards, Michael.
Encouraging children to write like Enid Blyton
- MJE
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Re: Encouraging children to write like Enid Blyton
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- Rob Houghton
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Re: Encouraging children to write like Enid Blyton
Maybe that's why many Brummies get mistaken for Australians by Americans, as I guess most Americans believe all British people use 'long A's' - which most Midlands/Northern people don't! I would never say 'graaaaas' or 'paaaass' or 'laaast' or Fraaaance!
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'
(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)
Society Member
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'
(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)
Society Member
Re: Encouraging children to write like Enid Blyton
The accent associated with the high-status or "Brahmin" class of Boston does sound a great deal like a RP British accent, but it has been dying out. You can still occasionally meet an elderly Bostonian who still speaks with that old accent.